Semester Takeaways

Since beginning the TAMU Master of Real Estate program, I’ve learned a great deal. One of my favorite takeaways though is coming a long way in determining what I want to do as a professional. For our speaker series class, I was required to write a short paper about my plans for the future, especially given the things I’d heard over the past few months. What follows is an excerpt from that paper including some of the valuable lessons I learned from listening to Mr. Bill Shown—the managing director of real estate for Silver Ventures.

“I’m most attracted to the prospect of building lasting, tangible infrastructure that can improve the livelihood of others and enhance the economy of an area. Much of the reasoning behind this decision came directly as a result of my deductions from listening to the speakers in our class.

Over the course of the past 13 weeks, I encountered few concepts from our class speakers so intriguing to me that I can recall them purely from memory. Two of these pearls of wisdom came from Mr. Bill Shown with Silver Ventures. In speaking about the hindrances that faced the development of the Pearl brewery and his decision to stay with the property regardless, Mr. Shown emphasized the importance of identifying one’s legacy in their career. He was initially leery about any development of the brewery but had grown to realize its potential to positively transform the surrounding area and even the city of San Antonio. The company he was with had decided to abandon the deal so Mr. Shown left his firm in order to stay and help lead the development of the Pearl. The second takeaway I gained from his presentation had to do with vision. Mr. Shown encountered crossroads where he could pursue the most “financially sensible” path with the real estate around the brewery, or perpetuate the entrepreneurial atmosphere and therefore riskier path. Though his decision may not have been a basic dilemma of ethics over financial gain, his integrity in maintaining the atmosphere of the area instead of chasing a bottom line was commendable. In the end, the entrepreneur Mr. Shown supported brought in a revenue stream that far surpassed the company he initially considered for the property. These lessons played a decisive role in my considerations for different roles in the commercial real estate industry. As a developer, clearly I could hold to my principles and potentially make an even greater impact in the community.”